Do you like Green Eggs and Ham? Musical storytellers Really Inventive Stuff return by popular demand, this time with their fully-staged adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ beloved children’s classic featuring Sam-I-Am. This engaging Family Concert also includes a musical twist on three of Aesop’s most familiar fables: “The Fox and the Crow,” “The Dog and His Reflection,” and “The Tortoise and the Hare.”
Artists:
Jacob Joyce, conductor
Really Inventive Stuff
Program:
Mikhail Glinka, Ruslan and Ludmilla
Daniel Dorff, Three Fun Fables
Felix Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, Op. 21
Rob Kapilow, Green Eggs and Ham
*Free shuttle transportation is available for this event via the park to park bus program. Drop off before the show and return pick ups after the show will occur in front of the Chautauqua General store and at the main hiking trailhead. For more information on Park-to-Park see here.
The 2024 Festival season opens with the much-anticipated return of Alisa Weilerstein, whose music “emerges with sunlit clarity” (The Guardian); here Weilerstein performs one of the most breathtaking works for cello. Later: Mendelssohn could not shake the “festive air” of Italy while composing his Fourth Symphony, which he called “ the happiest piece I have ever done.” The program begins with a brief and evocative Masquerade; composer Anna Clyne drew inspiration from promenade concerts held in London’s pleasure gardens and their “exotic street entertainers, dancers, fireworks,” and of course, masquerades.
Based out of Williamsburg, VA, Hornsby first rose to national prominence with The Way It Is, his 1986 Grammy-winning debut album with The Range. The title track became the most-played song on American radio in 1987 while Tupac Shakur’s timeless song “Changes” builds on “The Way It Is” and set the stage for many subsequent versions of the track. In 1991 Hornsby collaborated with Bonnie Raitt, playing on her iconic hit “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Additionally, Hornsby was a part-time member of the Grateful Dead from September 1990 to March 1992, performing over 100 concerts in America and Europe. The 13-time Grammy nominee has also solidified his status as a highly sought-after collaborator. Hornsby’s own 23 albums have sold over 11 million copies worldwide, and he has appeared on over 100 records including releases with Bob Dylan, Don Henley, the Grateful Dead, Stevie Nicks, Ricky Skaggs, Bob Seger, Chaka Khan, Bon Iver, Brandon Flowers, Bonnie Raitt, Sting, Mavis Staples, Willie Nelson and more. His most recent studio album, ‘Flicted, was released in May ‘22.
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Iconic New Orleans based Jazz Rockers Squirrel Nut Zippers will be taking fans on a magical, musical voyage to the birthplace of Jazz as they present Jazz from the Back O’ Town – a four-show love letter to the prodigious New Orleans neighborhood known simply as the Back O’ Town. The show will explore the New Orleans jazz scene of the late 19th century through the Roaring Twenties as the Zippers provide a delightful view into this mystical era with reverent, yet exciting, renditions of such seminal classics as Jelly Roll Morton’s “Animule Ball,” Louis Armstrong’s “Back O’ Town Blues,” and many others.
During the Jazz from the Back O’ Town shows, the Platinum band will also perform favorites from their own catalog, adapted and arranged to echo the sounds of 1920s New Orleans more closely. Additionally, Squirrel Nut Zippers’ founder Jimbo Mathus will lend his humorous, insightful musings on both the musical history of one of America’s most fascinating cities and the stories and inspirations behind many of the Zippers’ most beloved songs.
Jazz From The Back O’ Town will provide a uniquely historic look at the origins and evolutions of the Squirrel Nut Zippers over the course of their career and the role the music of 1920s New Orleans has played in forming and shaping their sound. Not so much a period piece as a living “peek-behind-the-curtain” of inspiration and celebration. And it makes for a very entertaining evening!
“There is of course jazz of various stripes (mainly pre-WWII varieties) on this deliciously wide-ranging comeback, but there’s so much more: Sounds, identifiable and not, emanating from mysterious times and places, not the least of which is New Orleans, their home base, a land that, forever and still, has a mind of its own.” – Relix
